OBSERVATORY; Disease Diagnosed in a 500-Year-Old Mummy

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

Published: July 31, 2012

Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York. The girl had a large sore on one leg, leading Dr. Corthals to believe she may have been unwell when she was buried, alive but unconscious, on the mountain.">

CORRECTION APPENDED

An Inca girl who lived 500 years ago suffered from a bacterial lung infection just before she died, report scientists who have examined her mummy.The girl, thought to be 15, was sacrificed by the Andean Inca at the summit of Llullaillaco, a 22,000-foot volcano in the province of Salta, Argentina, said Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York. The girl had a large sore on one leg, leading Dr. Corthals to believe she may have been unwell when she was buried, alive but unconscious, on the mountain.

Dr. Corthals and her colleagues used a technique called shotgun proteomics to compare proteins found in the mummy against large databases of the human genome. The mummy's protein profile fit that of someone with a chronic respiratory infection, said Liliana M. D?los, an evolutionary biologist at Stony Brook University and another author of the study.

''This is the first time it has been done on an ancient mummy,'' Dr. D?los said. ''It's now done routinely on cancer patients and has many human disease applications, but it hadn't been applied in archaeological work.''

Dr. D?los and Dr. Corthals and their colleagues report their findings in the journal PLoS One.

''They were buried in a tomb, and the tomb was packed solid with volcanic ashes and covered in snow, so they did not desiccate,'' Dr. Corthals said. ''Their entire bodies were sealed and perfectly preserved.''

The sacrificed youths probably made a journey of as many as 1,500 miles from Cuzco, the capital of the Inca empire, to the summit, Dr. Corthals said. ''The girl actually had gray hair, so I think they knew their fate,'' she said. ''And the little girl and boy also had their teeth ground down.''

PHOTO: The mummy of a sacrificed Inca girl was found in Argentina in 1999. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGELIQUE CORTHALS)

Correction August 7, 2012, Tuesday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: A report in the Observatory column last Tuesday about a diagnosis of bacterial lung infection in the mummy of an Inca girl sacrificed 500 years ago misstated the distance that she and two other youths probably traveled before their deaths. Their journey, from Cuzco, Peru, the capital of the Inca empire, to the summit of the Llullaillaco volcano in Argentina, was as long as 1,500 miles, not 3,000.

Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York. The girl had a large sore on one leg, leading Dr. Corthals to believe she may have been unwell when she was buried, alive but unconscious, on the mountain.">